(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for The Armillary, originally shared on June 18, 2020. It was the twenty-fourth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We are now just a few days from presenting
our 25th video, not counting the Introduction and Welcome video on
our YouTube Channel. And, coincidentally, we hope to move from DSL to high
speed internet in time for that 25th presentation, which should
improve the visual quality of these videos.
We’ll be entering the 21st century,
which makes me think of the story of the pastor being interviewed for a call at
a church that had been stuck in its way of doing things for a long, long time.
He said, “My goal is to bring this church into the 19th century.” “But
pastor,” said a member of the call committee, “this is the 21st
century.” “One century at a time,” he replied.
We’re at a point in the coronavirus pandemic
that most businesses are now allowed to open. At the same time, we have major restrictions
on our customs and behavior and our practice that are designed to protect us
from a deadly virus that is now once again on the rise in many places. How can
we know what to do? Which direction should we go? What is our moral compass in
this third decade of the 21st century?
I remember that, when I was a child, one of
my grandfathers would take my grandmother for a drive out in the country every
Sunday afternoon after church, and he almost always got lost. So, my dad bought
him a car compass, one of those analog things that connected to the rear-view
mirror, and my grandpa still got lost. My dad asked him how he could get lost
when he had a compass. “Oh that?”, my grandpa said. “That’s broken.”
There’s a lesson there. It’s not enough to
have a compass. You have to believe that it works, consult it, and you have to
act on it.
We have an Armillary in our back yard, or an
Armillary Sphere. Armillarys have been around for thousands of years. They were
devised to describe the visible universe.
Early ones placed the earth at the center of
the sphere, later ones after Copernicus and the monks and scientists that
preceded him, placed the sun at the center. As knowledge of the known universe expanded,
more and more bands, or partial bands, were added. This one is very basic, it
will tell the time and the direction.
Ours is a garden armillary, so it’s mainly
for decoration, very typical of English gardens which, if that means overgrown,
that’s us. But, it does work, under certain conditions.
First you have to get it out of its
decorative position and onto a level position in the sun.
Then
you have to calibrate it by setting the arrow’s shadow on the center band at
high noon. That will also point you to magnetic north. Or, you can point it to
magnetic north with a compass.
It will give you time and direction, if you
place it in the right position, look at it, and trust what you see.
Some people won’t do that. They’ll put
themselves at the center of their universe and they’ll trust themselves before
anything else when they’re lost.
There are a lot of jokes about guys not asking
for directions. I remember reading that we know that the wisemen who came
seeking the infant Jesus were wisemen and not wisewomen, because if they had
been wise women they would have stopped and asked for directions, arrived on
time, and brought practical gifts like disposable diapers.
The Bible is like an armillary. It is often
used as a decoration, but it can’t truly be useful unless it is placed in the
right position, read, trusted, and acted upon.
How do we find our directions in the Bible?
I read
about one man whose business was falling apart and he decided to use a Bible to
determine what to do. He closed his eyes, opened the Bible, put his finger on a
page and opened his eyes. It said, “Chapter 11”. That’s not how to use the
Bible.
Timothy was a young pastor to whom the
Apostle Paul wrote as a mentor. Here he writes in his second letter to Timothy:
*2
Timothy 3:14-17
The Bible isn’t a set of directions. It’s
not a Magic 8 ball or a source of secret knowledge.
It is
God breathed, that is, inspired by God. The word inspiration has the same rood
word as respiration. How did God bring life to human beings? God breathed into
the dust of the earth. Genesis 2:7
It’s
also interesting to note that in both Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the
Bible, one work (Ruach, Pneuma) can mean both breath and spirit.
The Bible isn’t just the words on the page,
it is the Word with a capital W, of God.
As such, it points to Jesus Christ on every page.
It’s been said that the Bible is the only
book every written in which the author is always present. God is present in the
activity of reading. It’s the primary way God speaks to us. It’s what Missionary
and ecumenist Hans-Ruedi Weber called it, the book that reads me.
Owning a Bible isn’t enough. Reading it as
literature isn’t enough. The Bible does not become the Bible until the Holy
Spirit opens our hearts to receive it, to lead us to a living relationship with
the living God, to fill us with God’s power and allow us to know God and
therefore to know how to recognize God’s presence, and from there God’s will.
How do we know we are not alone when we are
isolated? How do we not fear when we see rising numbers of the dead? How do we
know what to do and when to do it for our fellow human beings in a pandemic? How
do we see the Body of Christ in all human beings of any race?
The Bible leads us to a living relationship
with the living God, from which we learn to know and to act.
The Bible is like an armillary that must be
brought into the light, put into position, oriented, and trusted.
Take your Bible off the shelf today and bring
it into the light. Place it in the right position in your life. Read it with a
mind and heart that is open to its correction and instruction, its inspiration,
the presence of God in the act of reading.
Trust the presence of God, and act upon
God’s Word, inspired by the active living water that is the Holy Spirit, God’s
presence for good in the world, and receive formation and direction through the
Bible in the presence of the living God.
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